Big Fish Closing Treasure Quest Game Portal On Facebook

Casual game developer Big Fish Games will close its Treasure Quest portal, one of the company's first forays into the social gaming market, just 10 months after launching the application on Facebook. The portal will close on March 15, and is no longer allowing players to purchase virtual currency. It currently has over 48,000 monthly users and 16,000 daily users -- down from a previous high of more than 323,000 monthly users and 43,000 daily users, according to figures from AppData. Treasure Quest provides titles in various casual gaming genres that Big Fish is known for in the downlodable space, like hidden object games, match three puzzlers, and card games. It also had a social metagame allowing users to customize, dress, and level up an avatar used in the different games. "Unfortunately, the resources required to make Treasure Quest what it is are not sustainable," explained the company. "Many options were assessed and seriously considered before this final decision was made. The decision was a very difficult one to make but one that needed to be made as a business." Big Fish says it hasn't cut any jobs as a resulft of this decision, and that it has no plans to cancel My Tribe, its Facebook game with 232,000 monthly users and 29,000 daily users. The company's only other game on the social network, Faunasphere, has only 23,000 monthly users and 2,500 users. "To clarify, there is no need for concern regarding Big Fish Games as a company," said a Big Fish representative. "While Treasure Quest is no longer sustainable, Big Fish Games will remain and continues to grow."